COVID crisis over?
April 4 Kansas City Star
On Wednesday, Missouri Gov. Mike Parson declared an end to the COVID-19 emergency. “The COVID-19 crisis is over in the state of Missouri, and we are moving on,” the governor said in a prepared statement.
Thursday, Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly said her state would treat the disease as endemic, which means it’s no longer considered an existential threat.
The rest of us must be more cautious. For the people diagnosed with COVID-19 Wednesday, or for those in the hospital battling the disease, it isn’t over. For victims of long COVID, it’s not over.
For those whose loved ones were among the 16,000 Missourians who died of the virus, or the 8,300 Kansans, the declaration that we should move on changes nothing.
Kelly’s decision is disappointing, but not surprising. Her actions at the start of the COVID disaster were exemplary, but then slumped — partly because of Republican interference, and partly because of her own political calculations.
Parson is another story. He never acted as if the pandemic were a real threat, yet now claims the right to tell the rest of us to get over it. Parson, you’ll recall, resisted statewide rules for fighting COVID for weeks, suggesting “personal responsibility” was the only tool to resist the disease. He pushed decision-making onto local governments, then joined Republicans in complaining when mayors and city councils made those decisions, and imposed mask mandates and limited quarantines.
“You don’t need government to tell you to wear a dang mask,” he told a crowded room of ranchers in 2020. In May of that year, he cowrote a column in The Washington Post: “Our states stayed open in the COVID-19 pandemic,” the headline read. “Here’s why our approach worked.”
It didn’t. The day The Post published the column, Missouri reported 143 new cases of COVID-19. On Jan. 24 of this year, the state reported 10,072 cases. If Parson’s approach “worked,” what would failure look like?
Missouri’s COVID-19 death rate exceeds the rate in Texas, Massachusetts, Illinois, California — and Kansas. Yet you’ll never hear Parson express true regret for those tragic outcomes, or admit mistakes, or publicly comfort the families who lost loved ones to the pandemic.
In fact, he has bristled at any suggestion that he shares responsibility for the state’s COVID response. “I don’t even know where you come up with that question of personal responsibility as governor of the state of Missouri when you’re talking about a virus,” Parson said in the summer of 2020.
“That’s no different than the flu virus, or do I feel guilty because we have car accidents and people die every day,” he said. “No, I don’t feel guilty about that.”
As always, you’re on your own, Missouri. Personal hygiene — including masks in crowded indoor places — remains important. Schools and businesses should still watch closely to detect any early warning signs of a COVID outbreak. Vaccinations, including boosters, remain critically important.
Fewer than 56% of Missourians are fully vaccinated. That’s one of the lowest vaccination rates in the nation.
State officials promised to keep their eye on the virus. “This transition does not minimize the continued importance of public health surveillance, investigation, and response activities, as is necessary to mitigate any disease,” the governor’s statement said.
But stressing the “continued importance” of public health measures means nothing, coming as it does from someone who so clearly never took the pandemic seriously.
Missourians deserve a full review of the state’s COVID-19 response, and what we should be doing now to prepare for the next pandemic.
There are critical questions that should be asked and answered. Just don’t expect Mike Parson to ask them, or to care. COVID is over, he says, and wasn’t his responsibility anyway.